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Project: Arlene Intelligence (AI)
This text is written after the unexpected passing of Arlene Rosengarten on September 13, 2022. This writing happened also after the Direct Burial of Arlene on September 20, 2022, the public graveside service held at Chesed Shel Emeth Society Cemetary on Monday, October 3, 2022, and finally after the first #ArleneLifeDay held at Venture Cafe in St. Louis October 6, 2022, from 6-7 pm.
October 7, 2022
Arlene Rosengarten is still living. This is something I share in common belief with her partner of 20 years, Carl D. Essen. Is it real? It is intuition. It is a feeling.
The Meeting
I met one Carl D. Essen while I was in a creative sprint making an unfinished floor of the semi-new Cortex St. Louis 4240 Heritage Building into a creative playground for the month of April in the year 2018. Carl reminded me just this morning, "You were on a ladder stapling up plastic, and (our friend) Tyler Mathews told me I should come to meet you." That creative April brought DJ-collective NAAFI from Mexico City to St. Louis, birthed a few creative raves, yoga sessions, and converted Openclipart to new future-based technologies by Maxwell Foley, while I grappled with the "blockchain lifestyle" crypto work I was doing on Proof-of-Existence. It was the month of breaking down barriers.
Carl entered a space that had the same name as a previous space my friend, artist Matt Hope, and I created, called Breakerspace. Therefore, it was the Breakerspace at Cortex St. Louis, a month dedicated to breaking down concepts, objects, and barriers. Later, we discovered that my best friend Matt Hope, born on February 18, 1975, has the same birthday as my best friend, Carl D. Essen of the year 1955. It was "meant-to-be" this Aquarian-Gemini-Synchronicity. Arlene brought us together as she did with so many others.
I totally blew off Carl in a fit of youthful, world-traveler arrogance. But, he persisted and brought Arlene back to meet me. She needled me with numerology. She asked, "What's your birthday?" She said she was a painter which unlocked me to tell them both that I was helping Matt Hope to move some of his "big" sculptural artwork, recently released by court proceedings against Doug Christmas, founder of the infamous Ace Gallery. In the end, Carl helped me move some major artworks, including Matt Hope's 10 Towers, to St. Louis, Missouri from LAX.
Then my partner, Redelle Lee, flew back to Hong Kong, as we were splitting our time in both St. Louis and Hong Kong. I chased back after her ;) Time went by. We did lots of projects. And when I arrived back in St. Louis, Carl's non-stop DENSE emails felt like he was plaguing me and my overloaded inbox. As I do, and maybe like you too, I clear out my incoming emails daily. It is work. And, Carl sent extremely intense emails that my brain decided to handle "creatively" with a simple feeling-out of his sentiment. I quickly scanned over his email text, summarized the feeling of his email, and began replying with: Yes, No, or a :) (smiley).
A tradition started when I first met my friend Tyler Mathews, the then leader of Venture Cafe St. Louis on a Thursday in year 2017. I attended the weekly Thursday hangout regularly. Think free beer and tech and art. I had flown in for a session we designed, a monthly art exploration with local artists & technologists called Art Tech St. Louis (ATMSTL). I had just arrived from Tokyo and brought little plastic sushi gifts for people including game artist Tj Hughes, designer/producer Hayden Molinarolo and rapper Eric Dontè.
The Lack of Awareness
Carl came to me UPSET. I did not perceive his upsetness, at all. From my perspective, Carl was strange and sent me tons of messages I could not process. I felt like he needed me to do his work for him. Redelle was the first to set me straight. She said, "Hey! You really upset Carl. You did not take him seriously, and you should!" I did not treat him fairly. I had an inflated sense of my own self.
Redelle pounded this into my head, thru my thick skull to my brain, as a great partner does. I found Carl and sincerely apologized to him. From then on, I took him seriously and did not repeat this disrespect.
In fact, I learned that the "D" in Essen is the same "D" as in my name. Carl D. Essen and Jonathan D. Phillips share the middle name, David.
Time went by. I traveled more around the world. I landed back in St. Louis. And, Carl invited me to an art opening, as part of some crazy free art happenings.
"FINE!" I thought. "I will have a free beer. It is our normal weekly Thursday hang time after all." I made time to meet Carl and Arlene at "some random art opening." Later, I found out at the opening was that the well-regarded Fontbonne College.
The Trifecta
Joining Carl less begrudgingly hit directly upon the beginning of Carl, Arlene, and my relationship trifecta. Arlene chaotically stirred up Carl into action, and then Carl brought me something that I did not expect which charges me up to make things happen.
I found out that a dear friend of Arlene's, Charlie Jacobson, was pushed at an earlier time by Arlene to make a list of all free art & music events, called The Underground. Arlene loved to party and free things, so naturally having a regular free-party-crawl in St. Louis, fit Arlene well. That's Arlene's magic: She is the chaos that stirs up people, usually Carl, to facilitate actions for someone like me to handle.
Thanks indirectly to The Underground, I arrived at a free Fontbonne College Art Opening. It is the scene of a pivot in my relationship with Carl. Showing up to this truly touched him. He said to me in a child-like way, "You really came!" What a warming feeling that made me realize, similar to my friend Matt Hope, Carl too is not so easily understood. And, I did have the capacity to feel his true intentions in order to act upon them in reciprocity: Carl needed some love :)
The Conflicts
In early 2019, I flew back to Hong Kong and found out that Redelle and I were having a baby. The Hong Kong Protests started the day after that news. Nine intense months of growing a baby. Lili Phillips was born on December 7, 2019. A new illness was rumored to be coming out of China through Hong Kong.
After the birth of Lili Phillips, Redelle and I moved as far away from the protests as possible to escape tear gas and conflicts. We moved to a hotel in New Territories that had a sauna, my favorite place to unwind. During the days, I worked in Starbucks at the hotel recovering from the Linzhi-Nvidia War, rebuilding my web services, and making a path forward (which is incidentally coming to a pivot as well, 3 years later). At night, I went to the Sauna where I read Sam Walton's autobiography and sweat it out with a cast of characters. Daily, the situation worsened in Hong Kong.
One evening, an owner of a medical clinic came in and complained about how he could not keep masks in stock. I immediately contacted Carl because of his shipping expertise and I remembered Arlene had immediate supplies of promotional items including branded face masks. My thinking was how we could help Hong kong and we tried to sort out how to ship supplies to Hong Kong.
However, once medical doctors and nurses were protesting both the Chinese government and the handling of Covid with a work strike, I decided time to get out of Hong Kong as soon as possible. My family and I were on one of the last flights out of Hong Kong on February 5, 2020.
Redelle, my new baby of 3 months, Lili Phillips, and I landed in America. We immediately came to our downtown St. Louis home. We survived.
Then as I have written before, Ai Weiwei flew me and my family to Italy. Carl kept working on the mask problem and I was focused on raising the kid and helping Weiwei in Italy. I will never forget one night in Italy, Carl called me struggling to find a way to get me to handle his intense work on helping people get personal protective gear for the coming pandemic. He said, "Jon Phillips. You are the real deal. You are the dealmaker." He understood me. And, his words cut right through and re-defined and focused my sense of purpose.
Then, Italy closed up after 2 weeks. We were all upset. The Ai Weiwei opera was cancelled. It was clear at this point that the pandemic was going to spread with an unknown amount of damage. That was enough. We flew back to St. Louis. I wrote, "Trade is Peace" covering the details of this.1
Once back in St. Louis, Carl sped up on his medical PPE supply chain hunting. I came out special to meet him for his birthday at Venture Cafe in St. Louis special Tuesday session at Danforth Plant Science Center to see both Tyler and Carl. This time, I had a gift for Carl :)
The ArchBridge
We lost our minds there a bit with the pandemic, gloves and all. People started finding me knowing that I had experience in China. At this point, I clearly knew of Carl's brilliance. He wrote one email with about 20 people's email addresses cc'd and it bing-bong-binged right into a major deal to help BJC HealthCare solve its lack-of-mask-inventory & supply-chain issue.
In a very short time, Carl and I solved between us a nearly impossible logistics issue bridging his knowledge of over 15 years with Team Air Express shipping globally combined with my knowledge of China, all for one of the top hospitals in the world, BJC HealthCare.
Then, Carl brought in Arlene to help with the first shipments and to structure future sales, including Arlene's promotional items. Carl brought his many ideas that were percolating for years. We three co-founded ArchBridge Critical Solutions in Real Time to do global shipping and logistics. I registered www.archbridge.us (Creation Date: 2020-04-01T22:21:26Z).
I bought Carl an iPad and a 53' dry-van to store a huge amount of his personal items in that he did not have time to process in order to work on ArchBridge. We will get to that processing and that should be documented in a future writing once we are processing Carl's backlog of work packets.
This ArchBridge time period is when I really got to know Arlene and Carl. We were all scared about the pandemic and I sent my family to be with my parents in nearby Columbia, Missouri where I grew up. The pandemic fear was growing, and everyone was giving in to it...myself included...
The Matrix
I worked directly with Arlene and Carl on ArchBridge daily from May until Labor Day 2020. We spent pretty much the entire summer of 2020 in the heat, immersed in the many televisions tuned to news, volume up at Arlene and Carl's house. Carl explained to me how he needed to make a chart of all the relationships he calls "The Matrix", and the news served as a type of stimulus for both Carl and Arlene's work. Carl would alternate between intense emailing bouts and going outside to smoke cigarettes with a cup of coffee. In between, Arlene would pull out her Tarot cards in The Crystal Ballroom and start asking for my birthday numbers. You never knew who would stop by and sometimes simply the delivery people would get pulled in for a rest, and a reading of his or her numbers. No matter the person, Arlene would make an impression. And, sales started rolling in...
I remember Arlene pushing me to do more sales. But, like Carl before, I could not hear her. I remember her calling me one time pushing me on doing more sales and I could not stop laughing like a kid. To me, solving the puzzle was a game, not business. Arlene pushed, "Well you just made a deal. And there are more deals to do."
Earlier in time, my late friend Bassel Khartabil2 pushed me to ask him for venture capital that was being provided to my friend Joi Ito's Singapore venture fund. You see Bassel was desperately trying to leave Syria at that time. I worked super hard on this for Bassel, but I got all the way to the pitch meeting and Joi was semi-shocked to see me in this type of meeting, as we normally were buddies around the world. After some jokes were cracked, Joi got serious and asked, "Do you want to do sales?" It was the same answer I gave to Arlene: laughter. Joi and I both laughed pretty hard. And no deal was had that day for Bassel. Maybe this was another chance to make up for when I failed my friend later resulting in his death in the Syrian Civil War.
Back to Arlene, when she asked me this sales question, she was needling me in her own way, and I responded like a child. I realized later that I had really upset Carl and that is why Arlene was pushing me to get more serious and not treat ArchBridge like a game. She knew something more than I did. She was already married two times and had a daughter. Arlene kept needling me on an essential function for providing for my family. And, I was still not mature. Arlene somewhat gave up on me being serious that day. And, the only way I can answer that now is posthumous with how I live my life.
What I did not realize then, was that Arlene had worked for 50 years in sales in a St. Louis-founded and now global, promotions industry concern, Goldman Promotions that became part of Halo and had over 500M USD of sales a year. Arlene was a sales genius. No matter where she went, she converted conversations into sales of promotional items.
Later, at the first public event, after the pandemic and restrictions were lifted on May 22, 2021, we put on a great event at Venture Cafe in St. Louis outdoors to celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day, Bassel Khartabil's birthday, and Tyler Mathews gave Arlene the first founder's award for 50 years of service in the promotions industry.
The Diagnosis
Then on March 18, 2021, at 4:30 pm, Arlene & Carl were told by Dr. Sean Smith at The School (Washington University), that she had ALS.
Carl and I were devastated.
How do people like Carl and I handle this type of news? We work on the problem. And, that is what we did all the way up to Arlene's shocking "death" on September 13, 2022.
Is that all? Are we done?
The Projects
Carl and I dove into helping Arlene. Carl hyper-focused on the question of what triggered ALS in Arlene. We launched Project Tg which started with the study of one potential vector through the Toxic Gondii parasite, one of the worst pathogens found at the root of triggering neuro-degenerative diseases. We then started indexing all the vectors of the families of ALS, Parkinson's Disease (PD), Alzheimer's (AZ), and others. We formed a working group and have continued to make progress with our friends and well-established scientists, Steve Pries and Francis Yee, both living with Parkinson's for several years.
And we launched Project TeAI, AI for Arlene Intelligence, with engineer Eddy Mika-Kurosawa in Tokyo, Japan to create technology to support Arlene including the Botlater to translate her ALS speech to her natural voice and to be the communication platform worldwide for Project Tg discoveries.
Later, we began to notice through relentless work that there was a huge siloing in the health and support communities around people with neurodegenerative diseases. There is still a huge gap in providing support to the people doing caretaking of the sick. We joined weekly caregiver calls and are certain there is much more work to do in this area.
We found that ALS, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's patients were siloed at support organizations & research concerns, not allowed to communicate with each other. The "patients" were treated more as potential donor "fuel sources" rather than being treated as people needing to be healed.
Carl and I both were seeking to cure our beloved Arlene. And, Carl deserves massive credit for the 3-4 years since Arlene was diagnosed, to be Arlene's sole daily all-focusing caretaker. Carl knows what level of support is out there for caretakers, first-hand.
We found a very notable project called HealingALS. Scott and Pat who founded this project just held their annual conference and are making a documentary about the more than 30 ALS reversals they have participated in with people living with ALS. They have a large path that breaks through the siloing and helps ALS patients share stories and helpful information. They deserve more support.
And, we met through our ArchBridge work, a leading epidemiologist in the world, Knut Wittkowski, who we believe has a strong disruptive path to cure neurodegenerative diseases and a track record to back up this work. There is a lot more to do with Knut. He needs funding and support. Also, he is a Tango dancer at night like Arlene who tango-ed at The Ritz Carlton in Clayton, Missouri.
More recently, through me and my partner Redelle's work in art, I was introduced to Ashley Bickerton and his partner Cherry. Ashley is a well-known contemporary artist, now represented by the top gallery in the world, Gagosian. We were in the middle of working out how to have a parallel setup between Arlene and Ashley, both painters, to be able to paint using their eyes using iMacs with their built-in web cameras. We still need to do that. Even last weekend my friend Brett Webb said he has a graffiti writing artist friend who has survived for 10 years with ALS, and he needs this solution as well. We have some work to do there too!
The #ArleneLifeDay
Last night at Venture Cafe on Thursday, October 6, 2022, we began a tradition of honoring Arlene called #ArleneLifeDay. On this first time back to Venture Cafe in St. Louis on Thursdays after the Pandemic, Arlene's family and friends gathered to share stories about Arlene's life. The open event included friends of Arlene's like Dejoneiro Jones, Charlie Jacobson, and Tyler Mathews. Of course, Carl was there using Arlene's GrandPad tablet to document the occasion, and her sister Sandy Krem and husband Mike were in attendance sharing stories. Sandy shared a very touching set of poems. We all cried.
The first #ArleneLifeDay was a success. We will do it every October 6, forever.
The Discovery
As for other projects we need to complete, Arlene worked up to the night she went to sleep and transitioned. She worked nonstop on sales along with Carl on their promotions business, Arlene Creates. We need some type of Arlene discovery work to recreate a lot of information about Arlene and her various mysteries. I thought while she and Carl were living in Arlene's Crystal Ballroom that it was Carl who was a hoarder...WRONG! The hoarder was Arlene. We have not had time to sort and analyze Arlene's gifts to the world in their entirety. This will take some time.
The understanding and stories about Arlene and her impact are just beginning. I don't even have the information necessary to write an obituary or biography about Arlene. This makes me think, "Why do I need to write this type of document? Is Arlene really gone?"
NO! Arlene is not gone. Her physical earthly body is no longer functioning, but she lives on.
The way to honor her is to let all these projects sink in and consider how we as people who have memories of Arlene, may activate her now and as long as we live. Hey, I got my kid in front of Arlene several times to expose her to this part of life. Game on for memory activation! BoB (Baby-on-Board) as Carl calls my kid, Lili Phillips, knows Uncle Carl and Aunt Arlene, forever :)
The Distance
How far will we go? How far is too far? We will go the distance. Each moment is new and contains both the past and the future as we step forward in time.
Arlene could be AR-lene. If our work is successful, can Arlene be with us in Augmented Reality, a 3D avatar in virtual space guiding us on our mandates? Should we do this? Should we find a way to make her artworks with the knowledge she left behind as artifacts, and, or help artists like Ashley Bickerton to complete their living missions? Does a decision help us complete our projects outlined above? Can we cure ALS for others with this knowledge?
Rather than overcomplicate the path forward, as a project, and team, we should pass decisions through a simple set of questions: (1) Does the decision honor Arlene's living legacy? (2) Does the decision make the projects stronger? (3) Does the decision move us closer to reducing suffering for people living with neurodegenerative diseases?
While it is truly laughable to consider that AI (Artificial Intelligence) is or can ever be human, we can really make a dent in the true AI project, Arlene Intelligence. The outlined projects are very real with solid progress that should be put to use. Use it or lose it, as they say.
We are still here and the number of people daily increases with neuro-degenerative diseases. What will it take to solve this? My Grandma has Alzheimer's. Should we wait until you or your family is afflicted? The problem is still not solved. And, you, kind reader, may help solve it alongside us.
This is an open invitation to you to join us in our Project: Arlene Intelligence.
~ Jon Phillips
Writer's note: I began writing this the day after #ArleneLifeDay and finished my work on a plane over the ocean on my way to Asia for the first time since the pandemic. Today is October 17, 2022.
Jon Phillips is a creator of cultural world machines building in public at @kidproto and jonphillips.org